The Audacity

In the opening of Douglas Stuart’s 2020 debut Shuggie Bain, it’s 1992, and Shuggie, the 15 -year-old protagonist (who is pretending to be 16) is working at a supermarket in Glasgow, living alone, and hoping one day to be a hairdresser.

AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS Our June bookclub selection is John of John by Douglas Stuart. We will be in conversation with Douglas on June 24th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open. If you missed our conversation with Adriana Ramirez, you can watch it on YouTube. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club.

Emerging Writer Series Every two weeks or so I am publishing an essay from an emerging writer. This week, we are publishing “月下 | Beneath The Moon” by M.T. Lee. M. T. is from Taiwan and New Zealand, and has lived in many other places since. He holds a Masters in Transcultural Studies from the University of Heidelberg and is a graduate from the Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. His fiction has appeared in Podcastle. This is his first published essay.

I was really interested in Esther and Anibal’s relationship. Even though they were a romantic match, how did cultural and patriarchal customs threaten that love? In what ways was Esther required to carry the load or keep the peace? How did you feel when you read about Anibal’s betrayal coming to light at the funeral? Have you had to reconcile with the legacy of someone you love? It broke my heart that Esther’s children all seemed to blame her for their father’s behavior.

For the week of May 18th AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS Our May bookclub selection is The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adriana E. Ramirez. We will be in conversation with Adriana on May 27th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club.

And some thoughts on Survivor 50 We’re heading into a holiday weekend. What’s on your mind? What are your weekend plans? What should I write about in the coming weeks? I’m still stewing, believe it or not, about the Survivor 50 finale and the season as a whole. I love reality TV but it has morphed into something that has very little reality to it. It’s all kind of manufactured and unpleasant and gravely lacking in charm or whimsy.

I had a lovely conversation with my friend Amber Tamblyn! T’was a nice time. And then my light battery died mid convo and that’s okay, too. Get more from Roxane Gay in the Substack app Available for iOS and Android

Maybe it's men who ruin everything There is a long history of journalism chronicling the way women have ruined the pleasures and pursuits men have long enjoyed. In 1929, English theatre critic St. John Ervine wrote, “When the theater was vital and alive, there was no woman either on the stage or in the auditorium.” This, of course, has never been true, but that was not a deterrent for St. John.

For the week of May 11th AUDACIOUS BOOKCLUB HAPPENINGS Our May bookclub selection is The Violence: My Family’s Colombian War by Adriana E. Ramirez. We will be in conversation with Adriana on May 27th at 8 pm EST/5 pm PST. Registration is open. For newcomers, there is a bookclub FAQ if you have questions about how it all works. And this is what we will be reading for the rest of the year. We’re partnering with the lovely people at Allstora for the Audacious Book Club.

What did you know about this period of Columbian history before you started reading the book? What did you learn? At several different points in the history covered, the United States and the CIA get involved with the political violence. It was… not particularly surprising to see that American interference contributed to the violence. How, if at all, did you reconcile that troubling reality?